In the past 3-4 days I’ve had a lot of conversations with people about this simple thought… what is evangelism? The context of that seems to be that while our team was in Northern Ireland some folks have a hard time describing what we did there as “primarily evangelism.”
Here’s why I think it is evangelism… But first I have to challenge major assumptions about it.
Evangelism is a process and not an event
The very word evangelism means the process of evangelizing. To share the gospel with someone shouldn’t be just a one time occurrence and it shouldn’t result in anyone inviting you to church… It should be a process of inviting lost people to come to Jesus. Jesus and church are two different things!
I like to challenge people with thinking about evangelism as a process where you are helping lost people find out about and meet with Jesus. He is God! He can overcome any obstacle… But He also allows Christians to enter into the process by having us be “wall builders or wall destroyers.”
Evangelism is about introducing people to Jesus, not defending Christian beliefs
A lot of people think that because they get into debates about stuff… That they are sharing their faith. Nope, that’s an art called apologetics. Evangelism is about Jesus, not Christian politics or even morality discussions. I can lead someone to Christ who is a practicing homosexual who lives with his partner, votes Democrat, has a NOW sticker, and gives money to PETA. Don’t like that thought? Look at what Jesus told the Pharisee’s when they didn’t like him hanging out with tax collectors!
Evangelism is a spiritual gift… And a skill you can learn
Too many people say “I don’t have the spiritual gift of evangelism so I don’t need to share my faith.” Maybe that sounds good to you… But it is unbiblical. Each believer is given the same charge to make disciples. It doesn’t have an out clause if you’ve scored low on evangelism in a spiritual gift profile or if you aren’t comfortable.
Evangelism is too hard to do 
So is seeing lost people suffer. I like to go back to an old movie called Medicine Man. In the jungles of the Amazon Sean Connory’s character stumbles across a drug that kills cancerous tumors in mice. But his drug company rep is worried about the profits and the patent… She tries to stop him from telling the world about his discovery too soon and he yells at her, “If you knew the cure for cancer, wouldn’t you want to tell the world!” It’s a powerful question for believers. If you know Christ, you know the cure for something for more important that cancer. You know the cure for sin… Something that separates people from a Holy God. Don’t you see the need to tell lost people how they can know God?
Evangelism is just about getting people to heaven
True, those who know Christ go to heaven and those who don’t know him, the Bible teaches, they are separated from God and punished in hell.
But evangelism is more than just about the afterlife! It’s about living a life for Jesus here and now. A life free from the entrapments of sin and guilt. To be forgiven is to be truly set free to live! A lot of people think they are living great lives but they are dead in their sins… Knowing Christ will help people live a more abundant and fulfilling life now. [Not monitarily, bigger than simple money!]
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